Freedom Come-All-Ye

• Start note: F
• Words: Hamish Henderson. Written in 1960 for the peace marchers at the Holy Loch near Glasgow.
• Tune: Bloody Fields of Flanders
• Key: B♭
• Notes: Everyone sings tune on first verse, then high and low harmonies and drone join for verses 2 & 3.

1. Roch the wind in the clear day’s dawin
   Blaws the cloods heel­ster-gowdie ower the bay
   But there’s mair nor a roch wind blawin
   Through the great glen o’ the warld the day.
   It’s a thocht that will gar oor rottans
   A’ they rogues that gang gal­lus, fresh and gay
   Tak the road, and seek ither loanins
   For their ill ploys, tae sport and play.
2. Nae mair will the bon­nie callants
   Mairch tae war when oor brag­garts crouse­ly craw
   Nor wee weans frae pit-heid and clachan
   Mourn the ships sail­ing doon the Broomielaw,
   Bro­ken faim­lies in lands we’ve herriet
   Will curse Scot­land the Brave nae mair, nae mair;
   Back and white, ane til ither mairriet,
   Mak the vile bar­racks o’ their mais­ters bare.
3. So come a’ ye at hame wi’ Freedom,
   Niv­er heid whit the hood­ies croak for doom.
   In your hoose a’ the bairns o’ Adam
   Can find breid, bar­ley-bree and paint­ed room.
   When Maclean meets wi’s freens in Springburn,
   A’ thae ros­es and geens will turn tae bloom,
   And a black lad frae yont Nyanga
   Dings the fell gal­lows o’ the burghers doon.

Notes

Hamish Hen­der­son com­posed the Free­dom Come-All-Ye for CND demon­stra­tors in 1960. It does not speak explic­it­ly against nuclear weapons, but against the mind­set that caus­es our soci­ety to go to war, and to har­bour these weapons of mass destruc­tion. He sees in this song the Scot­land that John Maclean envi­sioned before him, a vision that the Scot­tish Peace covenant car­ries today: a place of free­dom ground­ed in extend­ing the hand of friend­ship rather than wag­ing war.

The arrange­ment we sing is based on one by Glas­gow wom­en’s choir, Eury­dice. The tune, is an adap­ta­tion of the First World War pipe march The Bloody Fields of Flan­ders, which Hen­der­son first heard played on the Anzio beach­head. The orig­i­nal tune was writ­ten by John McLel­lan, D.C.M.

Dick Gaugh­an has some use­ful notes on the song, includ­ing an inter­pre­ta­tion of the mean­ing in English.

The arrange­ment we sing came to us from Eury­dice Choir, Glas­gow Social­ist Wom­en’s Choir that ran from 1988 until about 2018. The fab­u­lous Scots singer Gordean­na McCul­loch worked exten­sive­ly with Eury­dice over the years, and we think that this arrange­ment of the Free­dom Come All Ye was prob­a­bly devel­oped by her, pos­si­bly with oth­er mem­bers of the choir. If any­one knows more specif­i­cal­ly the ori­gin of this arrange­ment, please do let us know!

Files

Free­dom Come-All-Ye (sopra­no part) (.mp3)

Free­dom Come-All-Ye (tune) (.mp3)

Free­dom Come-All-Ye (tenor) (.mp3)

Free­dom come all ye (score) (.pdf)

Slow sin­ga­long version: